An Affair to Remember
by populardarling
Summary: "Happy birthday, to you. Happy birthday, Mr. President. Happy birthday, to you." Everlark. Inspired by the rumored affair between Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy.


**So this is Day 1 of PromptsinPanem: Legendary Couples. I decided to do the rumored affair of Marilyn Monroe and JFK. **

**And on a writer's note: I do plan on updating Rumor has It soon. School and my sorority make life pretty hectic for me, but don't worry! I haven't given up on it. **

**Anywho, I hope you enjoy!**

**~Terri**

* * *

"Happy birthday, to _you. _Happy _birth_day, Mr. _Pre_sident. Happy _birth_day, to you. _Thanks, _Mr. President. For all the things you've done. The battles that you've won. The way you deal with U.S. Steel, and our problems by the ton. We _thank _you _so _much!" She blows him a kiss as the crowd goes wild. They adore him; they adore her. The crowd goes crazy, chanting her name, chanting his. Their names roll together like sugar and honey, perfect and sweet.

Her body guard escorts her off to her dressing room, handing back her white mink coat. "You were amazing," he gushes and she smiles at him, thanking him deeply. "You really are swell, Miss Everdeen." He opens the door for her. "Real swell!"

She places her gloved hand on his shoulder in gratitude. "Thank you, Gale. You really know how to make a girl feel appreciated." The brute of a man nods bashfully and stutters how he'll let her get into something more comfortable. "I'll be out in a bit. Do you mind making sure Haymitch is ready with the car?"

"Of course, Miss Everdeen. I'll let him know you're waiting." Her guard stumbles away like a foolish teenage boy. She waves to him sweetly until he turns the corner, out of her sight, and her facade crumbles. Katniss closes the door to her lavish dressing room and sighs.

What was she thinking, going on stage like that, in front of everybody? The press would surely have a field day with this, and with her failed marriage still fresh news, they were surely going to speculate the truth.

She turns to the full length mirror that hangs on the opposite end wall and frowns at her appearance: her lips too red, her hair too bright, her jewelry too gaudy, her dress too tight.

Her reflection is not her.

Sighing again, she rips off the annoying golden heels her stylist had put her in and throws them on the sofa. Her reflection looks nothing like the woman she is, or _was_. It's all a facade. The red lipstick, the white dress, the diamonds and gloves. All hiding the real Katniss. She tears off the diamonds, scratches marking her neck and collar, and tears start to peck at her cheeks. She pops open her medication and places three pills on her tongue, swallowing the bitter things, and more tears start to come.

What a sad little thing she's become.

A knock on the door interrupts her self-hatred, and Gale tells her the car is ready when she is. She thanks him, telling him again how good he is to her, and tells him to go enjoy the festivities the president is surely holding for his birthday.

"Aw, Miss Everdeen, I really couldn't leave you alone," he says from behind her door.

She wipes the wretched lipstick off. "I insist. I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself from here to the car. Go, have fun." He relents and leaves.

_Good_, she thinks. It would be terribly embarrassing having someone witness one of her break downs.

Her makeup is off, the fancy dress is hanging on its hanger, and her hair is back in its simple braid. Katniss looks more like herself, but the remains of her public persona are still there, and she fears she will never truly leave them behind.

Her belongings are few: a bag that holds a change of clothes, two bottles of champagne for celebration, and a hairbrush; her sunhat and sunglasses to hide her from view; and the shawl her little sister had made her before passing away a few years back. It was all she needs, and she was used to packing light.

The hall is empty, everyone listening to the president, and she stops at the corner of the stage, peeking out to see him. President Peeta Mellark gives his thanks to the country and he is so charismatic, so perfect that it hurts. The crowd loves their young and handsome president, and despite his marital status, she loves him, too.

The spotlight does him justice, she notices fondly. The way it hits his blond curls just right, showing the bits of red he has hidden, and his smile, oh his smile. It was the first thing she noticed about him when they had met. President Mellark's smile is the most genuine smile she's seen, never fake or forced. It made _her _want to be a better person, a happier person. Such a powerful man.

Then again, he is the president.

A hand startles her from her thoughts. "Miss Everdeen," a stagehand whispers, "you car is waiting."

Her smile isn't so heartwarming as the president's, but it still warms her admirers' hearts. "Yes, thank you." She takes one last look at the president and leaves for her car.

The night air is chilly, and she's thankful Haymitch has the heat on full blast, keeping her nice and warm in her coat. The car turns on many odd streets to prevent notice of whose car it is and soft jazz plays on the radio. Katniss sighs in content, sitting back in her seat as the street lights whiz by her window; Haymitch was always a crazy driver.

"You're awfully quiet tonight," he grunts out, his voice low and harsh after years of smoking.

Her eyes break away from the window and stare at his through the rearview mirror. They look the same, Haymitch and her, or at least they used to before she was discovered.

No one wanted what she had to offer, but they wanted what she _could _offer. Katniss had the potential to being a model, a singer, an actress even, if she worked hard enough. She just had to sign her permission for changes to be made. She liked who she was, but the money was so tempting, so _there _that Katniss had no choice but to take the offer. Hospital bills weren't going to pay themselves, were they? Fame had a price and that price was her identity. Her dark brown hair was dyed bleach blonde, her publicist insisted more curves was needed, the ditzy act was adored by all, and not even her full name was permitted. Plain and simple Katniss Everdeen who was born to a coal miner and crazy mother, who had never stepped a foot out of her small hometown in her life soon became Kit-Kat Everdeen: the singer, the model, the American woman icon.

And she hated it.

There was too much pressure to be this and that, too much pressure to be something she's not. People were harder to trust now, and she was never sure if they were there to help out of kindness or help her in hoping to gain something in return. Her life was now a tabloid topic for everyone, and she missed the simple days of walking down the street and no one knowing who she was, not caring who she's with.

It's too much.

"Did the president enjoy his song?" Haymitch tries again when she doesn't take the bite from his last attempt.

"Oh yes," Katniss purrs in the ridiculous accent her publicist says is alluring to men. It sounds ridiculous to her, but men have always been an enigma to her. Perhaps that's why all her marriages have failed so far. "He enjoyed the rendition."

He nods. "That's good to hear. I know you've been practicing."

A blush creeps up on her cheeks and she buries her face into her mink. Yes, for weeks she's been practicing what to sing for the president, Mr. President as she had called him just an hour ago. It had to be perfect because he is perfect.

The car stops in front of the small inn, a quiet place where both she and him have paid to keep reporters out of sight. It's too early to go to their room, too early to be here, but the thought of staying in the same building as him and his wife any longer would have pushed her over the edge. She pops another pill from her purse to calm her anxiety.

"You better be careful," Haymitch warns her, his grey slate eyes staring into her own. She's not sure if he means the affair or the pills, or both. He could mean both.

"Don't worry about me, Haymitch," she smiles. "I can take care of myself."

He puts the car in PARK, a sign he plans on waiting with her, and turns in his seat so that he's looking right at her. "Cut the act, Katniss. I've known you since you were a little sprout eating bugs." Her cheeks flush in embarrassment. Yes, Haymitch was very much her father now that her own has been dead for decades. "This is dangerous stuff, getting mixed in with the Mellarks. You gotta be careful."

"I know," she whispers, looking down at her lap like a scolded child.

"You could get hurt."

It's touching how much Haymitch cares for her, it really is, but she's thirty-two years old, a woman. She can handle herself; she always has in the past. "I appreciate the gesture, Haymitch, but trust me, we know what we're doing." And it's true. Their affair has been going on for months now and no one's the wiser as of yet.

"He's gotten you into trouble before. Remember?" How could he think it fair to ask her that? To think she doesn't remember that wretched night and all that blood?

"I don't want to think about that night," she answers stiffly.

"He's married," he reminds her. "Don't that bother you?"

"No," Katniss lies.

Haymitch sighs, shaking his head, and sits back forward. "You can have any man on this planet and you choose a married one."

"I don't want anyone else," she reminds him. Her sunglasses are back on, her floppy sunhat on to hide her hair. "And he's only married to her for political reasons. It means nothing."

"Sounds like the typical spiel tramps give," he mutters.

Ah Haymitch, always the honest one. She always depended so much on his opinion, knowing he wasn't bullshitting her, but this is too far. "I expect you back here tomorrow at exactly eight o'clock sharp. If you're not, then you're fired," Katniss states coldly. He slyly grins at her, calling her bluff, and she flings open the door and slams it shut, showing him she means business.

"I'll see you tomorrow, sweetheart," he calls from the car as she storms into the inn. If it wasn't for the fear of someone seeing her she'd flip him off.

Their room is a cozy one, small and personal. It isn't elaborate and gaudy like many of the places she stays at, making it feel a little more homey to her.

She takes a bath, putting his favorite perfume on, and contemplates putting her sheer white robe on for his arrival. It is his birthday, after all.

The bathroom has a standing mirror and she poses in front of it with the robe hanging loosely off her shoulders, practicing what she'll say when he comes.

"_Oh_, Mr. President," Katniss feigns dramatically in her pouted accent, pressing her hand to her forehead in distress. "I've been waiting _so _long."

"Have you?" a bemused voice asks her from behind.

She stumbles back in shock, ramming her lower back into the sink, and turns around to see her lover, the president of the United States of America: Peeta Mellark. He's still in his suit, his hair a mess now, and highly amused.

"You startled me!" Katniss exclaims, covering herself up with her robe. "I wasn't expecting you for at least another hour."

He chuckles and walks into the small restroom. "It's my birthday." His arms wrap around her waist and his lips find her neck. "Don't I get my way today?"

She pushes him away. "I was going to surprise you."

"And I surprised you instead," he kisses against her lips.

There's no point arguing. They stumble to the bedroom, her legs now wrapped around him, and they fall back onto the bed, their mouths never separating. She loosens his tie, kissing his neck with sloppy kisses, and he tells her how she's been in his thoughts all day.

"There's not a moment that goes by when I don't think about you," he admits once she has him stripped down to his boxers.

Katniss runs kisses up and down his chest, her fingers curling his soft blond hair. She can't keep her hands still when he's around. "You are running a country, Mr. President. I hope you're thinking of more important things than a silly girl." He gasps in pleasure and pulls her face back up to his.

"Say that again."

"Say what?" Now she's confused.

"Mr. President," Peeta breathes, kissing her again. "Say it again." He rolls them over, now on top of her, and sucks on her plump breast. She moans, her figure shifting underneath him, and he is so hard that she just wants him to take her right then and there. But Peeta Mellark is a cruel gentleman and the lead up is just as important to him.

"Mr. President," Katniss mews, teasingly running her fingers up and down his back. "Mr. President..."

Peeta gets a thrill out his title being murmured from her lips and kisses her as he pushes in. She gasps as they find their rhythm, trying to be as quiet as possible so no living souls outside these walls will hear.

He whispers how much he loves her and she tells him how much she admires him.

They kiss and they fuck, taking turns at who's on top, until both collapse onto the bed, exhausted and breathing heavily to calm their speeding hearts.

Peeta lets out an airy laugh and sits up, searching around for his undershirt. Her eyes zero in on his rear and bites her bottom lip in embarrassment. No matter how many times she's experienced sex the sight of a naked man still makes her blush.

"You looked handsome tonight," Katniss compliments, sitting up with the bunched up blankets covering her breasts. "Very prestigious."

His smile warms her heart and he leans in and gives her a small kiss on the lips. "I could easily say the same about you."

"Everyone doesn't respect me the way they respect you," she sighs, tracing circles into the sheets. "They listen to what you have to say."

He pulls her closer, huddling under the covers until his feet touch hers. "They're missing out because you have a lot of important things to say."

"All they do is stare."

"Because you're breathtaking."

"I have to act stupid, so when I'm being serious they laugh and pet my head like a dog."

"They pet your head?" he asks amusedly. He situates himself against her with his hand propping his head up. "And you don't bite their hands off?"

She laughs, teasingly taking a nip out of his hand. "What would my publicist say to that? She'd probably die!"

"Effie would probably die if you bit their hands off and then continued on eating without any utensils. She'd just have a heart attack with just a bitten hand." They fall into a fit of laughter, using the other as support, and it reminds her of the moment she met him in person.

His wife was a big fan of hers, claiming to have followed her career from the start. "I remember when you were a brunette!" Delly Mellark had proclaimed when she arrived at the White House for tea with the First Lady. "Now we're like twins!" she laughed, holding her own blonde hair next to Katniss'. Katniss had hesitantly laughed along, not wanting to be rude to the new First Lady.

It was in the tea room when Peeta had come in during a lunch break and won her over with his sweet smile and charms. Maybe it was because of her marital issues, but Katniss Everdeen had never been as smitten with a man as she had been the day she met the president.

Their affair had started off small⎯ a secret smile here and a gentle hand squeeze there. It was simple, innocent. Peeta's wife was oblivious to the entire thing, always prattling on about something that would irk Katniss to no end, but one look at Peeta would make the annoying prattling bearable. He would roll his eyes, make annoying faces that would cause her to giggle behind her hand, and act like anything but the president of the United States.

She was falling in love with a man who did not belong to her, but she wanted him to. She would dream of running her hands over his sculpted arms, kissing his smooth lips, feeling him push into her... Her husband would often ask what the hell she was dreaming of, and she would blush, muttering how it was nothing. Surely telling anyone about her sexual fantasies of the president would be frowned upon, and what would the press say? They were already so cruel to her.

It wasn't until her husband left her, filing for divorce, when Katniss dialed Peeta's number and begged for him to come over. He came instantly, holding her while she cried, and his arms around her felt so nice, so safe that she clung to him with every fiber of her being.

All she wanted was to settle down; she was so tired Hollywood and all the dramas it entitled. He rubbed her back, smoothed her tangled hair, and told her he would never leave her like her husbands have.

"Promise?"

"Always," Peeta told her.

They kissed for the first time that night.

Her finger curls around a lock of his hair and he kisses the inside of her wrist. "Do you find it funny how we're expected to act like gods and goddesses when really we're just human?" He gives her a quizzical look, not sure what she's getting at. "People chastise us for doing human things when I'm sure those criticizing us are doing the exact things they're criticizing."

His hand wraps around hers, stilling its movement. "Forget the press for now, Katniss." She loves the way he says her name. It makes her feel more like a human being than a starlet.

"It's hard." Peeta adjusts himself to a sitting position and cups her face.

"I don't want to talk about anything but us right now. It's my birthday."

"Ah," she teases, putting her hands over his. "We wouldn't want the birthday boy being upset, now would we?" He shakes his head, chuckling at her, and they kiss again. Katniss believes she'll never get used to the small butterflies that always flutter about when they kiss.

She proclaims they need champagne to celebrate the glorious day of Peter (Peeta) Nathaniel Mellark's birth. She pulls two bottles out of her small bag, almost forgetting they were in there, and opens one, the warm liquid fizzing to the top. They take turns with the bottle, and Peeta jokes how she's taking more than him.

"What did the birthday boy do for his birthday today?" Katniss drunkenly asks, pulling the nearly empty second bottle from his grasp. "Did he get all his wishes granted?"

Peeta shakes his head, drunk himself, and she wonders just what Haymitch had bought her for this occasion. "It was a typical day in the ova' office." He takes her hand and runs slobbery kisses all around her palm. She slaps him away, giggling how she doesn't like slobber. "Delly made me breakfast in bed," he remembers as an afterthought. "That was nice, and gave me a brand new watch. See?" Holding up his wrist Katniss sees the fancy gold watch that she had let him keep on in their sexual escapades.

"That's from your wife?" she questions, staring at the golden object now. He nods and reaches for the bottle again, but she pulls away. "You brought a gift from your _wife _here?" Katniss spits, nearly falling off the bed to try and get away.

He looks down at his watch in confusion. "It's a watch. What's the big deal?"

"The big _deal_," she stresses, enunciating her words harshly, "is that you wore something that _she _gave you while you were _fucking me_!" Stumbling around the room, Katniss finds her night bag and digs around until her hands wrapped around the small pill bottle. "How do you think that makes me feel, Peeta?" She throws the bag on the ground and pulls open the capsule. "Huh, Peeta, how do you think that makes me feel knowing how sweet and naive Delly Mellark is alone right now while her husband is out fucking Hollywood's ditzy _whore_?" One pill, two pills she pops into her mouth. "It makes me feel like dirt."

Peeta pulls the pill capsule out of her hands. "I hate when you're like this," he mutters darkly.

"Like what?" she screams, grabbing the pills back. "Like myself?"

"This isn't you," he argues. "It's the broken girl the press is always mocking."

"Well maybe they're just mocking the _truth_!" Her head is pounding now and she needs to rest. This night was turning out like nothing she had planned nor expected. "I mean," Katniss slurs on her way to the sink, "wouldn't anyone be broken after the baby? Maybe it died because God knew it was created out of sin." She takes a sip of lukewarm water. "I've heard of that happening, you know. God probably killed our unborn child because its parents were _fucking_ around out of wedlock!"

"That's not fair, Katniss," Peeta sighs, sinking into the lounge chair by the window.

"_No_," she retorts, "what's not fair is you not being there when I woke up with bloodied sheets. What's not fair is I had to deal with that all on my _own_ because you and your _wife_ were on vacation and there was no way to reach you." Her heart is racing so fast, the room still spinning, and his too blue eyes pity her. "Oh _God _I don't want your damn pity, Peeta," she spits at him.

"Then what the hell do you want?" The mention of the miscarriage was a low blow, Katniss knows that. He had grieved as much as she had when he found out. Peeta loves children, wants them, but Delly was as dry as a drought. "What can I do so you can get off those damn pills?"

What did she want? She was Hollywood's starlet, the _It _girl. She got everything she wanted when she wanted it. So what did she want Peeta to give her?

"I want us to get away from all of this," Katniss decides at last. "The spotlight, the press... I want to runaway from it all!"

Peeta grabs her shoulders and leads her to the bed. "You know I can't leave Delly, and you know I'm the president. I just can't runaway simply because you want it."

To her humiliation she starts to cry, her body wracking itself with heavily sobs. Her hands fumble to open the pill capsule again and she takes another handful of medication to calm her down. "I'm just so tired of all of this," she stutters out between sobs. "I want the stress to end."

He gently pushes back loose strands of sweaty bleach blonde hair from her face. "And it will someday, Katniss." He kisses her forehead. "It will."

She tells him to go, that she hates him seeing her like this. He's hesitant, not liking to leave her in this state by herself, but Katniss assures him it's for the best. "You have a wife waiting at home for you. I can't let my selfish needs get in the way of that." In truth, Katniss didn't care how Delly felt, but her pride was already damaged for the night and she keeps rubbing her stomach, wondering in a daze how different their life would have been, how challenging it would have been, if their baby did survive.

There was no point wondering about that now.

He promises to call her later at her place, to check up on her, and Katniss buries her tearstained face under the covers when he tries to kiss her goodbye. She gets one last peek of him before he closes the door, though. His blue eyes are sad, pitying her, and she starts to cry harder. She is so sure the people next door can hear her, but who cares?

The door clicks shut.

It's the last time they see each other


End file.
